Introduction: A few weeks back someone suggested a Ranma 1/2 /
Oh My Goddess crossover. Here’s my take on the idea. C&C
requested.

August 25, 2002

"Stupid curse, stupid fiancées, stupid life!!!"
Ranma muttered to himself as he sat down near his favorite spot
beneath the bridge, after another typical day in his life. His mood
darkened as he wrung his shirt dry to prevent it from sticking to
his very female chest.

Ranma groaned as he recalled what happened earlier…

"Ranma, come back here and try my tuna casserole!" Akane
yelled as she carried a pot of something, while she chased her erstwhile
fiancé. He'd turned to stick his tongue at her, when out
of nowhere he got splashed.

"Aw man, why the hell do these things happen to me?"
He asked, wringing his shirt dry. He felt something amiss and jumped
just in time to avoid getting a bellyfull of umbrella courtesy of
the raging fury of the Hibiki express. "Good morning to you
too, P-chan," he said in rejoinder as he somersaulted into
the air to land on the opposite fence.

"Don't call me that! For insulting Akane, you're gonna die!"
the lost boy roared as he tossed several bandanas in Ranma's direction.

Ranma dodged the deadly implements of fashion, weaving to and from
various side streets in hopes of shaking his pursuers. He put on
a burst of speed as he neared the gates of Furinkan, only to stop
as he got a face full of roses. He spat out the offending blossoms
to gaze angrily at the visage of Kuno, Raging Idiot of Nerima.

"Ah, my dearest goddess, how I long to hold you in my arms.
Come, let us leave this accursed institute of madness and sally
forth on a blissful d…" Kuno didn't get to finish his declaration;
it's hard to speak when you have a foot jammed into your mouth,
after all.

Ranma smiled and leaped up, spinning. The foot was removed from
the Blue Thunder's mouth when its mate slammed into his face, sending
the delusional samurai to la-la land.

The pig-tailed warrior brushed off the imagined dirt on his pants
and was just about to enter the school when Ryouga caught up with
him. The lost one gave it to him with the force of an out-of-control
freight train.

Ranma dodged his rival's blows and was just about to strike back
when a penetrating voice stopped him.

"Hold, foul minion of darkness. I, the Blue Thunder of Furinkan
High, command you to cease your torment of the beauteous goddess
of pigtails.

"If you wish to do battle with her, you must first defeat
me." Kuno declared as he rose to his feet, his bokken at the
ready.

Ryouga of course, studiously ignored him; only an idiot would take
on another idiot.

Tatewaki was miffed at the implied insult and subsequently attacked.
His father, Principal Kuno, and Miss Hinako, who was busy sucking
energy from everybody at random, soon joined him. The minor scuffle
soon escalated into a free-for-all brawl with Mousse, Konatsu, the
golden pair, the ghost cat and Pantyhose Taro joining in on one
side while the fiancées, Kodachi, Happosai and a mob of marauding
school girls attacked from the other. Poor Ranma was caught flatfooted
in the middle.

The resulting mess destroyed half of Furinkan High, as well as
most of the surrounding residences. All those concerned agreed that
it was all Ranma's fault.

When all was quiet, Ranma found himself alone, bruised, tired and
empty. "Kuso, is it gonna be like this every single day? What
the hell did I do to deserve this?" he muttered as he threw
a stone into the water. The pebble skipped a few times and then
sank. Its passing sent ripples along the waters that slowly faded
to nothingness. "Just like me…" Ranma mused as he stared
morosely at the reflection of the late afternoon sky. He felt moisture
on his cheeks and furiously scrubbed it with a grubby hand; real
men don't cry. The action was futile as it only made him pity himself
more.

Much more than anyone else his age, he was constrained by traditions
and mores that were old even before he was born. Honor, Family and
Tradition bound him more than the stoutest chain could ever hope
to. And struggle as he might, he couldn't break free. He had to
satisfy honor, or die trying. There wasn't any middle ground to
tread. He knew people didn't really think of him as a person; to
his father, he was a meal ticket and retirement plan; to his mother,
he was a manly man, the source of scores of grandchildren —
prime breeding stock; to his rivals, he was an obstacle; to his
fiancées, he was nothing but a prize; to the rest of the
world, he was a passing entertainment: a freak.

"What I wouldn't give to be somebody else. A more normal life
would be nice for a change," he mused, staring at the calm
surface of the canal as if by peering into its depths, he would
plumb the secrets of the universe.

"Are you sure about that?" came a voice from somewhere
behind Ranma, startling the cursed martial artist. He turned and
unconsciously shifted to a loose fighting stance. He was surprised
to find a young girl with weird markings on her face, who was at
the moment frowning and tapping her foot with impatience.

"My markings are not strange, Saotome-san. They identify me
as a goddess. Your pure heart and sense of honor make you an ideal
candidate, and so Heaven has decided to grant you your heart's fondest
desire. Oh, and by the way, my name is Skuld, goddess-second-class
in training," the girl said with a smile. The smile turned
to an expression of uncertainty upon seeing her prospective client
with a glassy look. The young goddess waved her hand in front of
the martial artist's face and screeched when the cursed boy keeled
over, promptly fainting after a full neural shut down.

"Saotome-san? Saotome-san, please wake up!" came a voice
from outside Ranma-chan's head. Someone was calling his name, he
thought. He felt warm water trickling over his body, triggering
the change. He gingerly stood up as he tried to get his bearings.
He was still in shock, he thought. Something that occurred earlier
had shaken him to the core, although for the life of him, he couldn't
figure out what that something was.

"That 'something' as you put it, was me identifying myself
to be a goddess. Will you listen now, or do you want to faint some
more?" a girl's voice queried somewhere to his left. Ranma
turned and beheld the goddess Skuld's frowning visage.

Skuld sighed as she laid her hand on her face. Her first assignment,
and it had to be someone that gawked at her and then fainted. The
young goddess grumbled at the unfairness of it all. 'Why him,
of all people?' she thought as she stared at the shell-shocked
look that adorned the pigtailed boy's face. She nearly jumped out
of her skin when he finally spoke.

"Are you for real? This isn't just a dream?" Ranma asked,
still unsure of anything. Sure, he experienced weirdness before;
monsters, aliens, ghosts and ghouls, but not something like this.
He realized it really wasn't a dream a moment later when the young
goddess' mallet slammed him to the ground.

"Why the hell did you do that for, you uncute, violent tomboy?"
he asked, momentarily forgetting that he was speaking to a goddess.
A fact he recalled a few moments later after he got bombed to blissful
unconsciousness yet again.

Skuld seethed with barely-checked fury. The nerve of that mortal!
He dared to imply that the beautiful Skuld-sama, youngest of the
Norns and the flower of heaven, was a tomboy! More infuriating,
an 'uncute, voilent' tomboy! If the mortal weren't
unconscious, she'd have given him a tongue-lashing he wouldn't forget.

The clouds suddenly darkened, and a single lightning bolt struck
the ground near Skuld, startling the young goddess. Words written
in the language of heaven glowed eerily where the bolt struck the
ground. "Behave yourself, daughter," it said.

The youngest of the Norns sighed at the unfairness of it all and
sat at the canal bank waiting for her errant charge to wake up,
so she could grant the infuriating mortal's wish and get on with
the rest of her life.

Ranma awoke with his ears ringing like crazy and his body aching
all over. He opened his eyes and tried to get his bearings. From
the looks of his surroundings he figured that he was in a blast
crater. "A very big blast crater. Even bigger than the old
freak's Happodaikirins," he surmised. He whistled in appreciation
at the damage created by a single 'Skuld-bomb', as the little goddess
called it. The pigtailed martial artist slowly rose to his feet
and jumped out of the blast hole to find the young goddess looking
at him with a mournful expression. He smiled at her and bowed low,
"Sorry about what I said earlier, my mouth is a bit faster
than my brain sometimes," he said, once again bowing low in
apology.

"Apology accepted, Saotome-san. I also wish to apologize for…
err… hitting you and for blasting you," the young goddess
replied, smiling to show that there were no hard feelings.

"Aw… Think nothing of it Skuld-san; I've had worse than
that. That ain't even a finger to what I go through each day,"
the martial artist replied, misplaced pride showing through his
voice and causing his holy companion to face-fault.

"Be that as it may, I still shouldn't have lost my temper,"
the young goddess continued, profusely insisting on apologizing
to the pigtailed one, who merely shrugged in answer.

"How about we agree that we're both wrong and leave it at
that; all this apologizin' is gonna get us nowhere fast," Ranma
said humorously, his hand rubbing the back of his head in embarrassment.

The goddess nodded, blushing as red as her mallet. She extended
her open hand, "Friends?" she asked.

Ranma nodded and clasped her tiny hand. It had been a very long
while since he'd had a friend, and now here was a goddess offering
to be one. He smiled shyly as he observed how small her hand was
compared to his. Even with the gloves, his hands still dwarfed hers
by a great margin. He looked at her and saw that she was blushing
profusely, a fact he found amusing. "What I wouldn't give to
have a real friend… I really wish we could be friends, Skuld-san.
I wish we could be friends for life," he whispered, and was
startled when the goddess he was talking to began to rise and her
markings to glow eerily. Moments later he was blasted off his feet
and into unconsciousness yet again, but not before hearing his friend
whisper, "Wish granted."